During the early days of aviation the academies established centres to train pilots and when the space program became possible they took over the space program. The aim of the academy was not space in an aqualung trailing wires.....

To put quite ordinary individuals into space at enormous expense is nothing to the purpose. Any academy graduate could learn more about space conditions and travel further in space after an hour of weightless silence than teams of orbiting astronauts who do not dream in space. Space is dream. Space is illusion. Why move a PX with all your dreary verbal preconceptions to the moon?

To travel in space you must learn to leave the old verbal garbage behind: God talk, priest talk, mother talk, family talk, party talk, country talk. You must learn to see what is front of you with no preconceptions.

Now contrast the possibilities opened by such academies with what we see in the world today. Research that could be used to free the human spirit is being monopolised by paltry intellects in the name of "national security". What are you getting out of national security?